Step Into The Dark
by Sunshinecackle
Summary: Adam would have accepted anything to dull the pain, even death.


**Title:** Step Into The Dark  
**Author:** Donnie  
**Fandom:** Saw/Insidious  
**Setting:** The Bathroom  
**Pairing:** None  
**Characters:** Adam Faulkner, Lawrence Gordon, Zep Hindle, John Kramer, Specs (Insidious), Tucker (Insidious), David (Saw .5), OC: Matthew Faulkner, OC: Lukas Radford-Faulkner  
**Genre:** Angst/Horror  
**Rating:** M  
**Chapters:** 1/1  
**Word Count:** 2006  
**Type of Work:** One-Shot  
**Status:** Complete  
**Warnings:** Canon Character Death, Hallucinations, Sensory Deprivation, Adam Dying, AU - Canon Divergent, Adam just starves to death here, Vent  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything except Matt and Lukas.  
**Summary:** Adam would have accepted anything to dull the pain, even death.

**AN:** Lol just have to say this before I get into the meat of it, I checked, and 2006 was the original word count for this. 2006 was the release year for Saw III. I just thought that was funny. xD

So… On to the real thing here. I've been doing not very good and really needed to torture Adam, I guess. I don't usually write his death, or him being dead or whatever, but I guess I needed to vent pretty badly. I hope you guys enjoy!

Edited by my friend, Griff, because I couldn't do it myself.

**Step Into The Dark******

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While Adam was used to the clawing beast in his stomach, this was a new low for him. Dying in the dark, waiting for something that wasn't coming. Lawrence had lied to him, and all he could hear was _I wouldn't lie to you._ over and over again in his head. An endless loop, sometimes in slow-motion as if he could pull every syllable from Lawrence's filthy, lying lips if he tried hard enough, and it was growing so old. The last thing he remembered seeing were those grotesquely bright blue eyes. They had been so handsome before the blood loss; it had made the incandescent fire in them scorch him, before leaving him to rot.

It took too much effort to be angry anymore. It took too much effort to even open his eyes, and he'd given up on trying to move his right shoulder at all. There was no escape this time, no way to duck under the responsibility and run. His own cowardice had landed him in the one place he couldn't seem to leave. Even the acrid scent of his dead cellmate and the stench of shit didn't register anymore. He had heard of the term 'nose-blind', but this was probably to a rather crazy degree. Old-Lady-With-Twenty-Cats crazy.

Sunlight was a vague memory, something he couldn't quite grasp anymore, and he yearned for one more sunrise. In his restless dreams he saw his family, his father's crooked grin - passed to all of his sons, Lukas' inability to stick to one person, David's sardonic attitude, Specs' nerd culture. They welcomed him back, Matt constantly babying him, much to his siblings' chagrin, and even Lukas was being kind. That was probably the biggest tell that it was a desperate fantasy.

Another bout of stomach acid shredded his throat as it leaked out of his mouth, and he didn't have it in him to even move. Barfing on his shirt was something that, last month, would have been alcohol-induced. Here, he was so used to tasting acid and feeling sick that he couldn't imagine ever drinking booze again. With his head pounding and his eyes, adjusted to the dark enough to see the vague shapes of the fixtures, pulsing, he closed them carefully, watching the spinning dots behind his eyes like an in-flight movie.

When had his life become so bad that he wished for his shithole apartment, that he missed the days that he couldn't eat because he didn't have the money? Having the option sounded like it would be better than _this_.

How long had he been down here? It could have been three hours or three days. That time was spent either pleading with God or hating him because that had always worked for other people. It wasn't like he had access to anything _else_, either. The tap didn't run, not anymore. Even the ticking of the clock had stopped at some point, leaving him in the dark in deafening silence. It figured that he wouldn't be allowed to count the seconds by to try haphazardly to keep time. Worse than that, though, was when he _could_ hear things.

Little scampering feet in the darkness. They had to belong to rats, mice, things of that ilk, and if Adam knew these New York sewer lines, he'd be feeding mammoth rats before the day was out. It did enough to terrify him into stiffening until his shoulder quaked, but nothing ever ventured close enough to touch him. Maybe in his sleep, emboldened by his steady breathing, but never when he heard them when he was awake. Beady eyes in the darkness watched him, mocked him with their ability to come and go as they pleased.

Rustling the chain did well enough to scare them off, and it was usually both a gift and a curse when he finally decided to move his leg. Restriction made comfort a far cry in any position, but even less so now that it felt like his ass had been melded with the broken tile beneath himself. Sometimes, he humored himself; which of them was _really_ worse off, after all? At least Adam had both of his feet, the evidence was on the other side of the room. It was a poor claim to happiness when seconds later his traitorous brain replied with, _But he has his freedom._

That was, _if_ Lawrence had managed to crawl to safety. For all Adam knew, Zep wasn't the only corpse he shared a catacomb with. Anything beyond the bathroom was a mystery, and he'd go so far as to say that anything _in_ the bathroom out of reach was a best guess, at this point. It was almost impossible to even tell which of Zep's feet he had had to kick away from himself at first. Once the door was closed and he was, rather suddenly, left with the inability to take anything for granted, he took everything in his general vicinity for some semblance of safety.

For a while, he had thought it was a better use of his time to try and find the key, to lay in the bathtub instead of on the floor. The less strength he had in his arms and legs to lift himself, however, meant he had wanted to get up and down less. Eventually, he parked back against the floor, and he wasn't sure he'd moved much in the last millennia. He was a fixture of this bathroom, like the tub, the clock, Zep's lifeless corpse. Sometimes he wondered if he'd been dead this whole time, if he wasn't already gone and his soul hadn't left, hadn't been given the chance or the option to leave.

Was this Hell? The question had crossed his mind on a few occasions, but he never truly entertained it. If nothing else, leaving the thought open-ended meant that there was a chance that this mind-numbing loneliness would leave, that the impending doom he felt looming all around him could _end_. Even if he didn't live, which was looking like the only option, death would be a welcome reprieve. What had he ever done to deserve this? He supposed starving to death in a shithole you could leave wasn't much better than starving to death in one you couldn't, but at least he'd been able to try and change his situation before.

That was his mistake, he mused absently, giving a breathless, mirthless chuckle. His only sin had been living, trying to survive. Had he gone back to his dad's two-bit trailer and scraped up his pride off the floor for dinner instead, maybe this wouldn't have happened to him. Hell, Lukas was better off than he was, and the man was a walking medicine cabinet if you were paying high enough. Why wasn't Lukas tested?

Or, maybe he had been. That Jigsaw guy was intent on cleaning up the under crust, and Lukas was as slimy as they came. Unbeknownst to him, David had been a player in his own game, just the same as he was, except for the thorny issue of him being the triplet that lived. David's survival was the only thing holding Matt together, who pleaded and threatened God in equal measure to have his son returned to him. Much like an unimpressed Customer Service employee, God had deigned to do nothing but let him rant, so far. It almost hurt more that his dad might be holding out hope that he'd come out of this, but he would say it was a close second. This hurt like Hell.

Whatever his stomach was saying, he'd almost forgotten the translation. Pain, sure, it hurt, but it _always_ hurt. No matter how much writhing and pitching it did, it melted in with everything else that wore on him. Sleep was nonexistent for him, but there was occasionally a lull in the constant pounding of his head. Were his eyes ever even open, anymore? He could make out vague shapes but it didn't really seem much different from when he closed his eyes again.

A sudden rush of light plagued his tired eyes, and he blinked awake, lower jaw quivering slightly.

_"Adam, __**come on**__." Lukas cried, and the eye roll could be heard in his voice as he slammed his elbow into the table, "Dad says we can't eat if you don't get your ass in gear, he's gonna starve __**all**__ of us because of you, lazy assh-"_

_"Shut it, Lukas, don't you have a ballet thing to be at for daughter number twelve?" Matt's voice cut in, playful and sharp as a tack, and Adam felt a smile working onto his face. It turned to a full-on grin when his father could be heard smacking Lukas' shoulder, "You watch your mouth. I'm your __**father**__."_

_"Pretty sure Adam's the only one that matters to you. Davey and I'll just have to go hungry."_

_"David's a good kid, he can have as much KFC as he wants, too."_

_"KFC?" Adam heard himself before he could register that he'd spoken. His voice didn't sound broken, it didn't sound fractured or even quiet, it was just how it used to be. "The grilled shit?"_

_"Yeah!" Lukas piped up again, peeking around the wall a little to give Adam a disapproving frown, "With mashed potatoes, macaroni, coleslaw, and biscuits. Get in here or I'm going to eat everything but the fucking slaw."_

_"You will __**not**__." Matt snapped, before his voice turned soft and coaxing, "Adam, come on, baby boy. Got all your favorites."_

_"You did __**not**__," Adam found himself giggling, elated at the idea that __**anyone**__ would actually like __**coleslaw**__, "You got coleslaw, and not extra Mac."_

_"I know, kiddo, that's the thing I got me that I know you brats won't eat. Except maybe Tucker."_

_"Tucker eats coleslaw." Specs supplied, already dishing out his plate of mashed potatoes, gravy and a single drumstick. "But he eats almost anything."_

_The mammoth of a man sat with his family around the coffee table in the dingy trailer he grew up in, on the floor because all of the chairs were too tall for him to still reach the table. Everyone was staring, expectant, as Adam shuffled in place in the hallway that lead to the bedrooms, biting his lip and feeling out of place. Was this even his family anymore?_

_"Adam," Matt's tone took on a sugary sweet tone that had him wary, knowing he had probably done __**something**__ wrong, "Come on, come eat. I know you've been struggling. You're not in trouble, I'm your dad, I can do stuff like this for you guys now and again, even if you're grown. __**Especially**__ because you're grown."_

_Acceptance seemed to wash over him in waves. Each step he took onto the thin carpet didn't feel like anything, but he was moving forward, taking a spot between David and Specs on the couch. David offered a one-armed half-hug, and Specs barely tilted his head before demolishing his drumstick. Lukas shot him an expectant look but dug into the breast he'd pilfered from the bucket, eating enough that when Matt noticed, he didn't do anything more than glare._

_"You know that's-"_

_"Adam's, I know, I get it. We all know he's your favorite." Lukas groaned, "It's weird to pick a favorite __**identical**__ triplet but whatever."_

_"I don't play fav-"_

_"Dad," Specs paused in his eating to look up, "You do, and it's okay."_

There was something in Adam's hands. It didn't feel like the greasy, delicious grilled chicken wing he'd picked up, it was soft, firm and bony. Cold, maybe, or just cool. It didn't seem quite right, but he couldn't exactly see anything wrong with it. Warmth blanketed his face as he took a bite, and something seemed to give. With a final sigh, everything melted away into nothingness, and he finally felt at peace.

Matt never would get to see his son again without looking into the faces of the remaining triplets.

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**AN:** I forget why I started this, but this happened even more because of some shit happening in my life right now and I'm just…. Trying to keep going. This sort of helped but I'm also more anxious, now.


End file.
